Commentary: China, India strategic partners, not rivals

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- More than one year ago, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang chose India as his first overseas destination since taking office.

Now, less than two weeks after a new government takes office in New Delhi, China sent Foreign Minister Wang Yi as special envoy to India where he held "productive and substantive" talks with Indian officials.

In fact, the past year has witnessed the most frequent high-level exchanges between China and India in nearly 60 years because they clear know that mutual benefits and common development can only be achieved through building a strategic cooperative partnership, instead of rivalry.

China and India are two important forces which are on the ascendancy in the process of global multi-polarization. Their ties are a bilateral relationship with great dynamics and potentials in the 21st century.

Politically, the two countries pledged to maintain the momentum of exchange of high-level visits, strengthen strategic coordination on bilateral relations and work out strategic plans, in order to give guidelines to the development of bilateral relations.

Wang's trip, with aims to cement the existing friendship and explore further cooperation between China and India, is expected to pave the way for a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to India later this year.

Wang, who visited India after the Indian new government was sworn in, said the China-India relations are facing a new start and new opportunities, adding that he came to India to emphasize that China welcomes, supports and wishes for India's development.

"Being ancient Eastern civilizations at similar development stages, China and India are both pursuing the great dream of national renewal, dreams that are interconnected and mutually compatible," Wang told Indian paper The Hindu.

Based on such similarity, for China and India, with a combined population that accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world's total, much is to be expected from their pragmatic cooperation.

The mutual complementarity of the two economies provides great potential for China and India, one being a global manufacturer and the other a major service provider, to jointly boost cooperation in bilateral trade, investment, financial services and new and high technologies.

Besides, both being members of the BRICS (namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and emerging economies, China and India can cooperate and coordinate closely within regional and global frameworks.

The two countries are also expected to grasp the opportunity of celebrating the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence and the Year of Friendly Exchanges to deepen bilateral exchanges.

Therefore, at such good momentum of bilateral relations, it is widely believed that China and India can put aside their differences on such thorny issues as border disputes to make sure they will not hinder the partnership and friendship between the two countries, which will be conducive to world and regional peace and stability.